


Landslide

by backtopluto



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Healing, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, maybe I'll add to this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtopluto/pseuds/backtopluto
Summary: Bill wasn't the one who got hit.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Landslide

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac

His entire life, Babe was certain he had nothing too loose. That was why he volunteered for the airborne, after all. Sure, he valued his life just as much as the next guy. He didn’t want to throw it away. But as far as he could tell, he was working himself into a stupor at the docks and he had no path whatsoever. 

He would come home from the docks so sunburnt even his burns had burns, and his hands were worn raw from handling ropes and crates. He liked working at the docks- he liked the men, being outside and in the sun, the vastness of the sea, the monotony of it broken only by the occasional fight. 

But it wasn’t living. 

The airborne, war- that had been living. 

His Ma called him an addict. Bill called him crazy, and Eugene well-

He listened to the radio droning about the upcoming snow storm. It was January and Philadeplhia was colder than an ice bath in the winter. He used to love the cold, the way it set his nerves on edge and made the hair on his arms stand on end and how his face would be red from all the rushing blood. 

He could admit he had a problem. 

He used to get into fights to fill the craving, but now nobody with half a brain picked on a cripple, and those who considered it knew they’d have Bill Guarnere to answer to if they did. After the accident he lacked something which made him feel alive, and his life had spiraled out of control after that on a one way ticket to either the bottle or the grave. 

The weather report slips into Jo Stafford’s Long Ago (And Far Away). Babe stubs out his cigarette just as Bill pushes open the apartment door, stomping mud off his boots. Babe closes the window and watches Bill wrestle the groceries onto the counter, a stray clove of garlic slips out onto the floor and rolls to Babe’s foot. He picks it up and rubs the bulb between his fingers. 

Long ago, and far away I dreamed a dream one day and now that dream is here beside me. 

He prayed she wasn’t singing about Bill Guarnere. 

“You should have seen the crowds today.” Bill opens the icebox and starts shoving things in. “Everybody was trying to get food before the big storm hits. Absolute madness, you’d think Pearl had been bombed again the way people were pushing and shoving at another. But it don’t matter, ol’ Tony always gives me the best shit anyways.” 

“He just wants to fund your restaurant.” Babe muses, peeling off the skin of the clove.

Bill glares at him. “That’s a pipe dream and you know it.” 

Babe flashes an opened envelope in his direction. “Then what’s this loan from the bank?”

“Fuck. You got me.” Bill sets aside the ricotta and sits in the chair across from Babe. He runs his hand through his hair. Babe only blinks at him, the envelope heavy.

“I asked the bank for the loan and they gave it to me. Brought ‘em some of that rigatoni and they asked if I’d bring ‘em any more. There’s a place down on Harrison, far enough away from any other Italian places that maybe I’ll have a chance. You can be my accountant or something, or the pretty face that greets the customers.” 

Babe hucks the clove at his head but Bill ducks. “You mean your charity case?” 

“Jesus Christ, Babe. You know it ain’t like that. You know it ain’t ever been like that.” 

He was right and Babe knew it, but he was tired of never leaving the house even if the prospect terrified him. He was sick of the pitying glances and the letters from veteran support groups and hospitals. He hated that his Ma didn’t look him in the eye anymore and the rest of his family treated him like a bomb about to go off. The war dripped off him like sweat, and was palpable in the air around him. You couldn’t look at him without seeing the war, and people hated the war. 

“What is it then?” He fires back. “I’m leeching off your hard work because I’m too damn scared to step outside and I won’t even look at my leg, much less think of a job!”

Bill looks at him. Instead of answering the question he says something much worse. “I wrote to Eugene.” 

Dropping that name was the equivalent of stepping on a landmine. Or hurling a grenade at him. He thought of the letters piled up in the trash, the ringing phone, the snow and the blood and a white armband and all the promises of an after. All with one name.  
“You did what?” He hisses. 

Bill stands and grabs a letter from the bottom of the grocery bag. “I wrote to him because your sorry ass wouldn’t.” He throws the letter at Babe and a train ticket falls onto his lap. He can’t read it. The handwriting on the letter.  
“What the fuck, Bill?” 

“I’ll help you pack your bag. Hell, I’ll even take you to the train and sit you down on that damn train. It leaves tomorrow morning, and Eugene bought the tickets himself.” He begins putting the last of the groceries away, like that’s the end of it.  
Babe hobbles onto his crutches. “Why didn’t you think to ask what I thought about all this? It’s my life!” The radio swaps Jo Stafford for Sinatra. “It’s my choice what I do with it!”

“Yeah?” Bill whirls on him. Babe can count the number of times Bill had been mad at him on one hand. For all his bravado, Bill could be shockingly patient towards the people he cared about. Or maybe he’d just given Babe a real long line and he’d finally cut it too close. “If it were up to you you’d spend the entirety of your life moping around this place thinking, ‘if only I hadn’t been in that foxhole, if only I’d gone and helped Liebgott, if I’d been a little too the right, if I hadn’t yelled at Gene.’ It doesn't change what fucking happened, Babe. You’ll waste your entire life thinking like that, and you’re lucky you even made it home. Luckier that there’s a guy a few hundred miles away whose been tearing himself up over you for the past year because he guilts himself for what happened more than you. Doc was this close to coming up here himself until I told him you were going down there. I told him you wanted to, so you better be on that train tomorrow or Doc is going to come up here himself and break your other leg.” 

Babe doesn't know if he should cry or scream. He swallows. “It’s still my fucking life, Bill.” 

“You drove yourself into this corner!” He shoves a box of pasta into the cabinet. “You are the reason you are where you’re at now! It’s because of your own choices and stubbornness that you can’t even leave the fucking house or talk to people.” 

“Not everyone can be like you!” Babe snaps, his voice shrill. He throws his arms in the air in defeat. “Not everyone can come back from the war and pretend it didn’t happen, can come back and find a girl and a nice place and have a baby on the way and a restaurant. I can’t even walk down the goddamn street, I can’t listen to the sound of an engine without being back there.”

“You could walk down the street, Babe!” Bill throws his hands in the air, defeated. “You could get the surgery so they can fit on a prosthetic, and you could look to be getting a job or finding a house- hell you could do that without the surgery if it really bothers ya.” 

“It’s different for some people! I can’t get rid of all the ghosts, the blood and bullets and the fucking camp. It sticks to me. I see the normal people going down the street and I can’t.” 

“I ain’t you.” He whispers. “I ain’t you.” 

Bill falls quiet, the silence heavy around them. Bill’s fingers twitch at his sides, his jaw clenched like he’s gearing up for a fight. Babe watches it twitch, waits for it to melt, for Bill to apologize like he always does and ridicule himself for pushing him too fast, too soon. 

The tension never releases, Bill just doesn't say anything. The world keeps spinning. Babe grits his teeth and adjusts his crutches. He slams the door like a fucking teenager.

Babe wakes early the next day, even earlier than Bill. The sun is a freshly minted coin, Philadelphia smells of grime and cooking meat. The radio is still humming in the kitchen when he steps out of his room, he hears Fran puking her guts in the bathroom; a perk of pregnancy. 

There is a backpack thrown over his shoulders, and he doesn't know if he’s going to the train station, only knows that he’s going away. He wants to watch the skyline disappear and take the train so far west he falls off the edge of the world. He wants to chop off his other leg so they’ll quit nagging him about the surgery. 

The street outside is cold despite the sun. It had rained all night and the gutters were fit to burst. 

There is a train ticket in his pocket but Babe doesn't know if it means anything. If the scent of coffee or the smell of rain mixing with gasoline means anything. But he does know that Eugene loved coffee and didn’t mind the rain, that gasoline meant a long truck ride and Blood Upon the Risers and being squished too close to another man.

He curses himself as he crutches around the corner, ignoring the pitying stares of the early commuters. Everything he thinks about circles back to Eugene or to the war, and more often than not to both. Sometimes he thought of good things, things like coffee. The coffee he had now wasn’t that powdered, dehydrated crap the army rationed out. It didn’t taste like life, either. 

He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, catching his breath, inhaling great lungfuls of the city air. He wanted to run- run until he fell off the edge of the world. He wanted to run south to Eugene. He can’t even run anymore.  
The crowd parts around him, like water around a stick in the river. The war was over. It had been over for almost a year, and the world had moved on. Everywhere you looked there was a baby, men in fine suits and women with laquer on their nails, trying to make something for themselves. The bad Nazis were all locked up and America was reminiscing in it’s new place as a world power. 

The world was moving on, and Babe was stuck like a rabbit in a trap. 

The scent of warm coffee fills him. Maybe there isn’t a reason Babe got on the train that day, maybe he just decided he might as well bury himself even deeper into the trap to get out. 

Babe ducks into the train station, keeping his eyes peeled for Bill or his Ma. His bag is light, lighter than it should be considering he isn’t all that sure if he’s coming back. 

He dismisses that thought as soon as it comes. Of course he is coming back. He’ll be in Louisiana for three days tops, then he’ll be back in his own bed with his radio and Bill’s cooking and Fran’s nagging. He’ll go to the bar on Wednesdays and Fridays like always and catch up with Spina, because other than Bill he’s the only other Easy guy he talks too. 

He takes a deep breath and moves to step onto the train when he stops. He can’t step onto the train- it isn’t even himself keeping him from doing so. The step is at least two feet or so off the ground, and there’s no way he can lift his crutch that high without toppling over backwards. Maybe it’s a sign. His grandmother would call it a sign. 

Babe looks around helplessly, the station is bustling with people but nobody has caught onto his dilemma. Why was the world built only for people who had absolutely nothing wrong with them? How was he supposed to go anywhere if he couldn’t even get on the train by himself? He looks back at the step, at the great maw between the train and the concrete ground beneath it. Should he sit down and push himself up the steps until he can’t stand up? He’s seriously considering it, maybe it’s a testament to his love that he is. 

His eyes water. He wipes them on his sleeve and takes a steadying breath. This ain’t how his life was supposed to go. He was supposed to come home a war hero, marry Doris and move to the suburbs, find a steady job in the office and have spaghetti on Wednesdays with the Guarnere’s and watch their kids chase each other around the table. 

He takes a big breath of air, tries to regulate his breathing, keep his head above. There are sounds and sounds and he’s back there- the sky is falling in on him and his leg is gone and he’s screaming for Gene but Gene isn’t there- he’s not fucking there-  
“Babe.” Says a voice. Harder, “Babe.” 

It’s Bill. Babe looks at him, then away. People are staring and he’s shaking and Bill’s just barely holding him up. He’s a live wire, a bomb about to burst. He’s startled to find he’s not on the ground, the roof isn’t coming in and there’s no Krauts. He isn’t even screaming, just staring at the step like it’s a dead dog. 

“You don’t have to go.” Bill whispers, his face cloudy. “You don’t gotta go.” 

“I need-” he licks his lips, steadies himself. “I think I need to see him.”

Bill looks at him, his tight and his brows drawn. Even in combat he didn’t look so torn up. 

“Just help me up, Bill.” 

The train ride is long, and he doesn't reach Bayou Chene until the sky is dark and freckled with stars. When the train pulls into the station, only a few passengers crack their eyes open, and even fewer groggily stand to collect their bags. Babe sits there for a long moment, stiff and unable to stand. He feels like a statue shaking off it’s plaster when he does collect his things and hobble down the steps. Again he finds himself at the maw of the abyss, the great two-feet leap below. He swallows, perhaps he’ll have better luck swinging himself down instead of up. 

But this time there are warm hands on his biceps. When he looks down Gene is staring up at him like he’s hung the moon and all her stars. His eyes are warm and soft around the edges, and his cheeks are full of color, not the washed-white Babe remembers from the last time he saw him. 

The breath is stolen from him, his heart stops and then speeds up like a broken record. For a moment, everything is forgotten and it’s only Eugene and all the world sharpens, focuses, blurs and collides into them.

Wordlessly, Gene helps him down, and Babe is none too graceful about it. It makes Gene smile even more. Babe is going to burst. 

“I’m real glad to see you, Edward.” He drawls, and says his name just because he can, because he finally has a reason to say it. Babe wants to melt into him, he can’t even be mad that Gene didn’t call him Babe. Not after all this time. 

Babe swallows again and shifts on the crutches. “I’m glad I’m here too.” And he means it. Despite all his bitching and Bill’s bitching, he’s glad to be with Eugene. Their unsaid words weigh heavy between them, soaked up in the pressing humidity of the bayou air. There was a lot that went unsaid between them even before Babe’s leg was shot to bits and he had to be pulled out. 

Gene’s eyes flit down to where his pant leg has been rolled up and pinned to his stump. It’s only a glance, but Babe doesn't miss it. He pretends he does, and he also pretends to miss the way Gene’s smile fades a bit and the way the warmth around his eyes cracks into something else. 

“We should be going, I bet you’re real tired after that ride.” Gene finally says, his hands falling away from Babe’s biceps. Babe glances around, but there’s hardly anybody else at the station at this hour, and none of them are paying them any attention. 

“Yeah.” He breathes. “Yeah, okay.” 

Gene guides him to his truck and helps stash his bag in the trunk. The seat is just low enough that Babe can pull himself inside. The truck is at least ten years old, and the seats are stained and the door handle is worn down.

Gene slides naturally into the driver’s seat and backs out of the station, down the only paved road in the town before switching to a lesser used dirt road. Babe tries to catch glimpses of the town, the place Gene calls home, but it’s dark and the buildings are sparse and small. Vines hang from the huge trees like snakes, and the houses grow fewer and fewer the deeper into the swamp they travel. Mud sticks to the tires, trying to suck them into the bayou. 

“Gee, you said you lived in the Bayou.” Babe laughs, filling the silence. “But I never did imagine this.” 

Gene shrugs, turning the truck down another dirt road, this one even narrower. The truck bumps along and Babe nearly hits his head on the ceiling. “It ain’t much.” 

“It’s a swamp.” Babe breathes. “An honest-to-God swamp.” 

“Y’all don’t got swamps in Pennsylvania?” Gene grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling. 

“Nope. But we got some mean forests.” Not that he had really ever been to them. If he was being honest, the war was the first time he’d ever really been in nature. Course, here Gene was living smack dab in the middle of it. 

The trucks stops in front of a yellow house with white shutters. There’s a small garden, and a porch out over the water where the front door is. An American flag swims gently in the breeze, illuminated by a single pocket of light from the porch. Cypress trees the size of skyscrapers rise out of the murky water. The Mississippi is black as ink, burbling along the cattails and the reeds. Between the roots of the Cypress trees, fireflies dance between the trunks.

“They’re like stars.” Babe says. 

Gene follows his gaze as he takes Babe’s bag from the trunk. “Sure are. I used to collect them in a big jar. I would cry when they were all dead in the morning.” 

Babe limps out and the ground squishes under his boot like a sponge. The humidity is choking, like a blanket. He pulls in a deep breath, before he collects his crutches and follows Gene around towards the front porch. There is a small boat and dock, and a rocking chair on the porch besides the flag, and an ashtray on the railing. Gene nods towards the rocking chair, fishing out his keys from his pocket. The boards creek beneath them, the scent of the swamp is like a perfume. “Guess we’ll be needing another one of those.” 

And just like that Gene has told him he could stay. Like Babe hadn’t been ignoring him for the better part of a year, like the last time they saw each other wasn’t when Babe was in too much pain to scream, and Gene’s eyes were wet and he was elbow’s deep in Babe’s blood. 

Babe blinks. “I guess so.” 

Inside the humidity isn’t so suffocating. The house smells of cajun spices and vanilla wood and Gene. The house is small and modestly furnished, yet clearly well lived in. There are family photos and quilts, and a window that looks out towards the wall of trees and the fireflies. It is warm, uncomfortably so, but Babe welcomes it. It smells of coffee. 

Something brushes his leg and he looks down to find a ginger cat brushing against him, it’s yellow eyes the size of a full moon. Babe grins, wishing he could leans down to pet it. “Whose this?” 

“Olivier.” Gene says, setting aside the bag to pick up the cat. “My ma didn’t want him no more, so she handed him off to me.” 

Babe scratches the cat’s chin, but then the cat hisses at him and he yanks his hand back like he’s been burned. 

Gene just laughs. “He’ll warm up to you. He only speaks French.” 

“Don’t I look French?” 

“Not particularly.” Gene sets the cat back down. “Come on, we’ll get you settled.” 

The house only has two bedrooms, so Babe takes the spare. It’s small and the bed is thin, the sheets even thinner. There is a window framed by white curtains looking out at the swamp, and a vase of small white flowers on the nightstand. 

“It ain’t much.” Gene repeats, his voice tight. The room is all-yellow lit from the lamp, and it makes Gene look tanner. He’s healthier since the last time Babe saw him, he’s not so thin and the bags under his eyes aren’t so deep. Something eases in Babe, he’s half-drunk on the Louisiana air and sleep deprivation, and he can’t find it in himself to be repulsed by what he’s doing here. The unsaid words are still heavy between them, but they’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out now. 

“It’s perfect, Gene. Thank you.” Babe says, settling on the bed, relieved to be off his crutches for the day. He still isn’t thinking real hard about a surgery, the thought of someone cutting him open is repulsive, and he doesn't want a prosthetic. Like a fucking robot. 

“Alright.” Gene says, and looks like he wants to leave but his feet are glued to the ground. He can’t stop looking at Babe. Babe’s trying not to look at him.

He swallows, pushing out the tension. “I’ll see you in the morning?” 

“Yeah, Edward.” He says softly, stepping out. “I’ll be right here.” 

The door closes behind him, and Babe listens for Gene’s retreating footsteps on the creaky floorboards. They don’t come for a long time, like he’s just sitting outside the door. Babe wants to push him away, far away.

It’s early in the morning, the sun not yet risen when Babe wakes with a pain so acute it’s like he’s back in Bastogne getting his leg torn off. He’s screaming before he can process where he is, or understand what’s happening. He thrashes the covers off, and even though he can see his ruined leg, the stump halfway through his thigh, it doesn't stop the pain. His leg is still there, and it’s being burned off and twisted like a piece of string. 

The door bursts open and Gene is there, taking his face in his hands, running them over his body to check if he’s alright. Gene is saying his name over and over again, asking what’s wrong, but Babe’s tongue feels like cotton in his mouth. Gene is practically suffocating him to check if he’s alright, and there’s fear in his eyes, that uncontrolled fear he saw only once in the entire war. Babe’s done it to him again. 

“Is it your leg, Babe?” Gene shouts. 

Babe nods. His leg twists further, like a licorice stick. The heat and burn crescendos and he bites down on his teeth. 

Understanding dawns on Gene’s face. “It’s a phantom pain.” He whispers. “Babe it isn’t real.” 

“That don’t mean I can shut off the fucking pain, Gene!” He yells, his voice tight. “Jesus Christ.” He takes the stump in his hands and tries to massage feeling into it, remind his body that this isn’t Bastogne, that there’s nothing there to feel pain. 

“Babe, I-” His hands fumble, they’re shaking like they were when Babe got hit. It’s the first time he’s seen somebody in pain and there’s nothing he can do. There’s nothing to heal, no blood or broken bones. “Babe.” 

“Do you have morphine?” He grits. 

“No!” 

“I’ll take anything.” Babe clutches his stump tighter, but it doesn't make a lick of difference. “It’ll help, it’s helped in the past.” 

Gene vaults off the bed, just like he did in the war. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go nowhere.” 

He comes back and Babe swallows the pills. Gene rubs his back and grips his hand, and together they wait for the pain to ebb. Babe is sweating buckets, his heart hammering like a drum in his chest. He’s gripping Gene’s hand so tight his knuckles pale. He’s breathing hard. 

Neither knows how long they sit there, gripping one another like drowning men. They rock back and forth, Gene murmuring in French as Babe’s heart slows. The pain subsides slowly, then all at once. He slumps into Gene, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He’s more exhausted than ever. The fear is still clouding Gene’s eyes, the trauma of hearing Babe screaming again and not being able to do anything has rocked him. He’s still shaking. 

“I’m sorry.” Babe says into the morning air. They’re leaning into one another on the thin bed, just like they did in foxholes. “I didn’t think it would happen, not here. I shouldn’t have put you through that. Usually Bill deals with it.” 

“Don’t apologize.” Gene mutters tightly. His accent is thicker now, practically dripping with the swamp. “It ain’t anything you can help.” 

“You shouldn’t have seen that. I shouldn’t have put you back in that position. I’ll pack up my stuff and be out of here on the first train.” 

“No.” Gene’s grip tightens. “We’re going to get through this together. It ain’t gonna be easy, but we’re gonna do it. That’s why you came all this way, and that’s why I’m here with you.” 

Babe breathes out a shaky sigh, glances heavenward, then back to Gene. “Thank you. But I still gotta go. I can’t wake you up with my screaming every night. I can’t drag you back to the war with me.” 

“Babe.” Gene’s hands find his face. His grey eyes are hard, turned black in the darkness. They’re crinkled with lines in the corners. The breath leaves Babe’s chest. 

“You ain’t the only one still stuck in that war.” 

“Gene-” 

“Sometimes I wake up and I wonder around the house because I swear I can hear someone calling for a medic. Other times you’re bleeding in my hands and I can’t save you. Sometimes it’s your leg, other times it’s your stomach or your heart. I wake up shaking every damn time. I can’t breathe.” Their eyes lock, and Babe’s crying, the tears slipping out like sand in a strainer. He places his hands over Gene’s leans into his touch. He’s as grounding as he was in Europe, when they were trapped in freezing foxholes or dilapidated buildings and Hell rain down on them from a faceless enemy. 

“And when you ain’t there-” his voice breaks, “Babe I can’t. I can’t do it. I need you here. I need to see you’re okay, even if you’re a bit broken.” 

He’s thrown back to those touches, the ones in the darkness when nobody could see, the kisses up against buildings that they never talked about. The one time they really touched each other and Babe saw stars. How he’d wanted Gene more than he’d ever wanted Doris or Vera or any of the other girls back in Philly. How he wasn’t even revolted with it because he couldn’t be revolted with anything about Gene. 

“Love can’t heal us.” He whispers. “Love won’t take away the war. We gotta do that ourselves.” 

“I know.” He whispers back, tears sliding down his own cheeks. They touch foreheads, both out of breath. Babe feels like he’s being swallowed with emotions, shit he didn’t let himself feel until now. “I know.” 

They hold each other until they fall asleep just as the morning sun shines over the Bayou and the fireflies go to sleep. The vines hang heavy, swaying in the breeze in time with the striped flag on Gene’s porch. It’s a place where the war feels like a fantasy, and yet it’s there in each of their steps, each of their shaking breaths. But it won’t be there forever. 

They had nothing to lose but each other.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a mess but I've been trying to write a babe roe fic for so long and I'm just glad I finally got one posted.
> 
> Also, "Phantom Pain" is pretty common with amputees. Back in the day, it was believed to be a mental disorder but now scientists have realized that it's actually the nerves in the spine essentially being confused as to why they aren't receiving information from the missing limb. The nerves sort of freak out, and in doing so create pain in the nerves that were attached to the ones in the missing limb, so it feels like something is hurting the limb and that it's actually there. Phantom pain decreases with time, and people often experience phantom sensation, which is pretty much the same thing except much less painful.


End file.
